44 THE INLAND PASSAGE. 



but we purchased some very fair beef at very mod- 

 erate prices, eighteen pounds of porterhouse being 

 sold to us for eight cents a pound. The town is a 

 pretty one, and the next day being Sunday, we went 

 to the colored Methodist Church, a thing that no 

 visitor must fail to do, and heard some very charm- 

 ing singing. This was our first experience of the 

 quaint, wild, and slightly barbaric harmony of the 

 voices of the negroes, of which we were to hear a 

 great deal before our return to the North. 



Beaufort was the first thoroughly Southern town, 

 with its fig trees in the open air, the Yupawn, or 

 native Tea tree, the red-berried evergreen bushes, 

 whose name we could not ascertain, and its genial 

 air of Southern indolent happiness, which we had 

 visited. We were sorry to leave it, and had Florida 

 been only placed where it ought to have been, five 

 hundred miles nearer New York, we should have 

 stayed days if not weeks longer. But the time was 

 flitting by, and still we were a thousand miles from 

 our destination. So without more ado we put to sea. 

 From Beaufort to Cape Fear there is such a bend 

 in the coast that it is laid down on the charts as a 

 bay. Being shielded from the terrible northeasters 

 of the Atlantic, which reach no farther than Cape 

 Hatteras, it is as safe for a small vessel as any part 

 of the boisterous ocean ever can be. But I was glad 

 when Heartsease got through the voyage. With 

 care there is no danger, and the trip is not half as 

 perilous a one as we are accustomed to take at the 

 North, where we are at home, without a thought of 



